Microsoft has now pushed a new Windows 10 Redstone 4 preview build for insiders in Fast Ring and Skip Ahead. The Build 17083 is live now and brings many changes and new features.
It brings the privacy tools including Diagnostic Data Viewer, fonts in store and font settings, Timeline improvements, Ease of Access improvements and more. Quiet hours gets a new name “Focus Assist” and Windows Hello setup has become easier.
Read the full official changelog below.
Changes & new features in Windows 10 Preview Build 17083:
Font Settings and Fonts in the Microsoft Store
Fonts are an important asset for your visual creativity. In this build, we’re introducing new experiences for managing your fonts in Settings, and for acquiring additional fonts from the Microsoft Store.
You may be familiar with the Fonts control panel, which you could use to see the fonts that are currently installed, or to install or uninstall fonts. That control panel hasn’t been able to show off newer font capabilities, such as color fonts or variable fonts, and a refresh has been needed. In Build 17083, we’re providing a new Fonts page within Settings.
The initial page for Fonts settings provides a short preview of each font family. The previews use a variety of interesting strings that are selected to match the primary languages that each font family is designed for together with your own language settings. And if a font has multi-color capabilities built into it, then the preview will demonstrate this.
When you click on one of the family previews, it will take you to a details page that provides previews for each of the fonts within that family, along with other information about each font. There is a default preview string, but you can enter your own, custom preview string as well.
For Web developers and advanced typographers that want to make use of OpenType Variable fonts, there is a separate variable-font details page that allows you to explore the continuous, variable-design capabilities of the font.
Along with the new Settings experience, we are introducing fonts as a new content type in the Microsoft Store. To find them easily, there is a link from the Fonts page in Settings directly to the Fonts collection in the Store.
Note that you need to be running build 17040 or later to be able to install the font packages in the Store. For now, we have a small set of curated offerings from Microsoft’s library of fonts, but this will grow over time. Make sure to come back regularly to see what’s new!
We hope you’ll find the new font experiences in Settings and in the Store will enhance your own creativity. We’d love to hear your feedback via the Feedback Hub, or your reviews of the font offerings in the Store.
Diagnostic Data Improvements
Microsoft uses Windows diagnostic data to focus our decisions and efforts to provide you with the most robust and valuable platform possible. By participating in our diagnostic data programs, you have a voice in the operating system’s development, improving the overall product experience and quality through your insights.
We value your privacy. Our commitment is to be fully transparent on the diagnostic data collected from your Windows devices and provide you with increased control over that data. As part of this commitment, we’re adding two new features in this build for Windows Insiders which can be found under Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.
Diagnostic Data Viewer
The Diagnostic Data Viewer is a Windows app that lets you review the diagnostic data your device is sending to Microsoft, grouping the info into simple categories based on how it’s used by Microsoft.
To get started, navigate to Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback. Enable the Diagnostic Data Viewer Toggle and then click the button below to launch the app.
View your diagnostics events: In the left column, you can review your diagnostic events. Selecting an event opens the detailed event view, which shows the exact data uploaded to Microsoft. Microsoft uses this info to continually improve the Windows operating system.
Search your diagnostic events: The search box at the top of the screen lets you search all of the diagnostic event data. The returned search results include any diagnostic event that contains the matching text. Selecting an event opens the detailed event view, with the matching text highlighted.
Filter your diagnostic event categories: The app’s Menu button opens the detailed menu. In here, you’ll find a list of diagnostic event categories, which define how the events are used by Microsoft. Selecting a category lets you filter between the diagnostic events. More details about these categories can be found here.
Provide diagnostic event feedback: The Feedback icon opens the Feedback Hub app, letting you provide feedback about the Diagnostic Data Viewer and the diagnostic events.
Opt-in for Standard User
With our commitment to transparency and control, a standard user can now make changes to the Diagnostic Data levels. When an administrator sets the Diagnostic Data level, a user can choose to update the Diagnostic Data setting . This control also provides notifications when these settings have been changed by another user or an administrator.
Timeline Improvements
We’re thrilled to hear how excited Insiders are about Timeline! We’re also listening closely to your feedback and are pleased to announce several changes in this build to put you more in control of your privacy.
You’ve told us through the Feedback Hub that you want us to make it easier to delete activities from Timeline. We agree that deleting multiple activities is cumbersome, which is why we added the option to delete everything from a given hour or day from the context menu. When you are in the default view, you will see a new “clear all from day” option when right-clicking on an activity. If you clicked “see all” to see activities for just one day, this option changes to allow you to “clear all from hour” instead. Because this option can clear a lot of activities at once, we will ask you to confirm this choice before deleting the activities.
We made it easier to clear all activities for an hour or day.
The second change gives you more granular control of the privacy of your activities. A new setting allows you to sync your activities to the cloud for a seamless cross-device experience. You can enable “Let Windows sync my activities from this PC to the cloud” in the settings app, or you can enable it via an option provided at the bottom of Timeline. Until new users enable this setting, Timeline will only show four days of activities. (If you are upgrading from an earlier WIP flight, you may not see this option as the setting is already enabled.)
Windows Shell Improvements
Quiet Hours gets a new name and more! With the expanding feature set in this area, we will now be calling it Focus Assist. Speaking of which, you can now also switch between the three Focus Assist modes by right-clicking the Action Center icon in the taskbar.
Making Windows Hello setup easier: We’ve made it easier for Microsoft account users to set up Windows Hello on their devices for faster and more secure sign-in. Previously, you had to navigate deep into Settings to find Windows Hello. Now, you can set up Windows Hello Face, Fingerprint or PIN straight from your lock screen by clicking the Windows Hello tile under Sign-in options.
Windows Settings Improvements
See your UWP app version numbers: We’ve heard your feedback, and in addition to the other work we’ve been doing on the UWP app settings pages in Settings we’ve also updated them to include the app version number for easy reference. As a reminder, the easiest way to get to the app settings page for a particular UWP app is to right-click the app in Start and select More > App settings
New options for sorting your startup apps: Based on your feedback we’ve added a dropdown to the Settings > Apps > Startup settings page so you can choose to sort the apps listed by name, state, or startup impact.
Hyper-V/WSL Improvements
Windows Hypervisor Platform API: We have added an extended user-mode API for third-party virtualization stacks and applications to create and manage partitions at the hypervisor level, configure memory mappings for the partition, and create and control execution of virtual processors. A third-party client can run alongside a Hyper-V managed partition while maintaining its management, configuration, guest/host protocols and guest supported drivers. For further information, see Windows Hypervisor Platform.
Ease of Access Improvements
New setting to turn automatically hiding scrollbars on or off: We’ve heard your feedback and have added a new setting for those who would prefer their scrollbars stay always visible. It’s available under Settings > Ease of Access > Display. Turning this setting off will result in the scroll bars in UWP (XAML) apps persisting as scrollbars in their full expanded size, even when not interacting with them.
Note: In this build Start won’t follow the setting – we’re working on it.
You choose whether to enable or disable the color filters hotkey: In order to help reduce accidental invocation of this hotkey, we’ve added a new checkbox for this under Settings > Ease of Access > Color filters settings page. The default state is disabled.
We’ve made a number of other Ease of Access improvements in Settings, including:
- We’ve added Narrator landmarks throughout Settings to quickly move between search, navigation list, and main landmarks. And for Narrator users, the page heading (shown visually at the top of each page) will no longer read out as being at the bottom of each page.
- In Settings > Ease of Access, we’ve shortened the name of the “Cursor, pointer and touch feedback” page to “Cursor & pointer size”.
- We’ve swapped the positions of Color Filters & High Contrast in the Settings > Ease of Access navigation list.
- In Settings > Ease of Access > High Contrast, we’ve switched the default theme to be “High Contrast Black”.
- We’ve added links to Settings > Ease of Access > Narrator Settings for learning how to use Narrator and for adding more voices. Also the cursor movement mode combo box in the “Use Narrator cursor” sub-section has been removed.
- We’ve updated the Settings > Ease of Access > Speech page to present information & settings about Dictation, Cortana, as well as Windows Speech Recognition.
- We fixed an issue where Settings > Ease of Access > Eye control was a blank page.
- We’ve updated the Ease of Access search terms & results to better align with the available settings. Duplicate search results have been removed.
- Throughout Settings > Ease of Access you’ll find new “Related settings” links.
Windows App Permissions
Control access to your pictures, videos, or documents folders: With this build we’re giving you more control so you can now decide which UWP apps can access your pictures, videos, or documents folders. If a UWP app needs access to any of these, a consent dialog will pop up prompting you to accept or deny the request. If at any time you change your mind about the decision, you can go to Settings > Privacy where you’ll find 3 new Settings pages (one for each of the folders). If you deny access to a particular folder, to protect your privacy that UWP app will revert to only being able to access its local app folder.
Sets are gone:
Thank you for your support of the early testing we’ve done with Sets. Your feedback helps us as we continue to develop this feature. Starting with this build, we’re taking Sets offline as we ready RS4 for release. If you have been testing Sets, you will no longer see it – however, Sets will return soon in a post-RS4 flight! Thanks again for feedback, and we look forward to sharing new Sets features with you soon.
